Give me strength to do it well. Give me courage to let go peacefully and in gratitude for the beauty of my daily life. Give me discipline to follow the example of Jesus not to be afraid.
This year our friend Art died at the age of 65, suddenly, of a heart attack while drinking coffee. Art was a strapping, monstrously hard-working, lonely man who loved to be around Joe. His death was not predictable and it shocked us. Art used to help with hard work at our farm– he transplanted trees, pruned storm damage, helped Brooks move the chicken coop on log rollers. He had a gift with plants and trees.
This year our dear friend Brooks died. He had Alzheimer’s and painfully declined for seven years. He went to kindergarten with Joe. His body needed to let go, but we did not want to lose him. He was too close, too much like us, too dear to us. He left a gaping hole in our friendship, our farm, our neighborhood, our work crew, our fun times, in his family. Joe saw Brooks almost every day for 35 years.
This year our friend Tessie died of a brain tumor. She began acting strangely, and five weeks later she was dead at 50. It was shocking, and there was not even time to get to acceptance.
Now Nona is facing her final hours. She has lived the cleanest and godliest life of anyone I know. She has followed the rules of her Italian old-country, Holy Names sisters upbringing–modest and humble, hard working and clean, patient and kind, generous and giving. Her hands are red and swollen from cleaning, ironing, baking, washing.
She was raised in an era when girls did not walk alone with men– they had aunties following within sight. Mike Pence was ridiculed for similar marital protections, but they were commonplace in cultures where purity and decency were firmly held. Despite this, Nona accepted, even loved, modern girls who had children but no husbands. She loved the children with no fathers, and showed them nonjudgmental love.
She was raised in an era when gays were secret and shameful their whole lives. Yet she accepted gay friends and relatives without reservation. She had no patience for statements by her church that homosexuality is a sin. She saw the hypocrisy and looked past it to Jesus’ love.
She is now fighting for her life and I am praying for peace for her, and acceptance, and joy in going to heaven. I am praying for all of her family, because the hole she will leave behind her is unfillable. I pray for me, that I might live so ethically and purely, and die well.